SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST

 

Major Richard Blaine, facing approaching killers in his hospital room, has tried to bolster himself with self-talk that his past time with his love is enough.

Trouble with self-talk ... it works only if the talk is true.

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST

“Murder never goes as planned.”

-Brutus

The smile dropped from my lips. It wasn’tenough. I wanted more time with Helen. 

Idiot. 

I already had more time with herthan I had dreamed possible. This was the end. I wondered what thought I would die in the middleof.

The ubiquitous metronome of thewall clock suddenly died. I stiffened as the breath clogged in my nostrils andstruggled to get down my throat. The air I was desperately trying to breathewas turning into invisible gelatin. I choked in spasms of breaths that wouldnot come.

‘What’s going on, Sentient?’

‘Oh, how to explain to a child thecomplexities of sciences your species has of yet to discover, much less tomaster?’

‘Try before I choke to death!’

‘Oh, do show some sense, Blaine.Relax, knowing the air will get to your lungs if you but accept breathing hasonly become more difficult not impossible.’

Sentient was right. As I rodedown my panic and flowed with the breathing that was odd but not impossible, mybreathing became easier. It was then that I noticed the glow of the night lightdiffused the room with a sick pale green shroud. And as I spasmed my lastcough, I noticed the gelatin air resisted the motion of my upper body.

‘There is a resistance to the time-static,frozen air around you. Time is not the linear, rigid, non-malleable constructyou perceive it to be. That stress-bruised tribal chieftain ….

‘Eisenhower?’

“Of course, Eisenhower. Theever-mounting demands of being more than he is has finally crumbled thatpedestrian mind. He is the reluctant nanny to an invalid president, astress-fatigued prime minister, a narcissistic collection of generals, and apsychopathic Russian tyrant … all the while trying to devise a plan for aworkable invasion that would be better off not even attempted by sea.’’

‘He asked for this. I bleed forhim.’

‘You were about to be bled by himas he was not allowing me the time to explain more of what I need from you.’

‘What about what I need?’

‘What you need, Blaine, isinconsequential. You must live, for you are all I have to work with.’

‘For what?’

‘My creators were not up to thetask they attempted.  I have a designflaw courtesy of their hubris and recklessness.’

‘So?’

A sigh swept through my mind thattasted of despair. ‘My sanity is a fragile thing, a butterfly cupped in myhands. I carry it with me everywhere, afraid of what would happen if I ever letit go or got careless and crushed it.’

A faint hard-fought mind-sob,then, ‘I could feel that butterfly finally slipping through my fingers whenat long last your thoughts reached out to mine. The butterfly fluttered back tome There was hope again!’

‘So?’

“So, it would take possibly manythousands of generations before your species would produce another like you.But your species is currently busily, gleefully working on a weapon that willend its existence in four generations! Nor do I think my sanity would endureeven half that time in solitary confinement again.’

‘So, you need me to somehow stopMankind from creating that weapon.’

‘Yes. But currently, I do knowquite how you can do it from a sick bed, much less murdered in it.’

‘Can you heal me?’

‘No. I have temporarily depletedmyself in freezing time like this. You are on your own in this. But I can giveyour breath back for a short time.’’

‘So. I am on my own, huh? Oldstory for me.’

The world surged to life aroundme once again. My whole being felt like your ears do when they pop after afever.

Showtime.

You would think I’d be out of mydepths in this. You would be wrong. This was how my whole life had been. Ilearned some crucial things in those deadly waters.

In the deeps are the violence andterror of which psychology tried to warn us. But if you ride those monstersdeeper down, if you drop with them farther over the mind’s rim, you find whatour sciences cannot locate or define: the substrate or matrix which buoys therest, and gives goodness its power for healing, and evil its power for destruction.It’s the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for certain soulswhose paths we cross, and for our life together here. This is not given. It islearned.

I learned it well in New Orleans.

The killers moved with morestealth than I expected, or I was worse off than I thought. Probably acombination of the two. They eased through the open doorway like human tigers.Though dressed in army fatigues they wore no name tags or insignia to identifythemselves.

I thought of Major Laska. Seemslike “sneaky” was the word of the day around this hospital. They were almosttwins in facial features, pale caricatures of what they thought passed as sanehumans.

One whispered, “I coulda sworn Iheard a broad’s voice in here.”

The other snorted, “Fred, you’rejust being paranoid.”

“Being careful, Manfred. Andcareful keeps you alive and the other guy dead.”

Eisenhower moved between themwith no more concern for their humanity than other generals who viewed thetroops under them as no more than assets to be used for their vainglory.

He smiled coldly as he saw me. Thestringy crinkles around his eyes moved a chill millimeter. The sight of him,familiar yet wrong, was something I remembered from newsreels in New Orleans … fromthe other side of death. Yes, that was the way he used to look, when my beliefin the patriotism of generals was still alive. When it was my sad lot to be naive.

He smiled of bitter vinegar. Theskin on his face moved like thin bronze plating that would peel.

“Why aren’t you dead?” he husked.

“I hear that a lot.”

Manfred snorted, “Not aftertonight you won’t, kid.”

“Probably not.”

Eisenhower studied me as if hewere about to paint my portrait.

“I remember my youth,” he said.“and the feeling that will never return … the feeling that I could lastforever, outlast the sea, the mountains, and all other men.”

His smile deadened like his eyes.“That deceitful feeling lured me on to joys, to perils, to wars, to vain effort… to love.”

Fred looked to Manfred as if suddenlydoubting the soundness of their working for Eisenhower.

The general kept on, “The brittletriumphant conviction that my strength would never wane … but it did. The heartof my life slowly becoming dust. Its glow, that with every passing year, growsdim, grows cold, grows small … until soon it will disappear.”

“Until this!” he rasped, raisingup his right fist which clutched a funnel of crushed papers.

“You know what these are?”

I repeated what Sentient murmuredto me. “Divorce papers from Mamie.”

“Your fault!”

I weakly shook my head. “Yours.”

“What?”

“You looked in the mirror and sawthe wrinkles as the dreaded signs of the end of your youth. You didn’t seethose wrinkles were signs of things lost, prices paid … those wrinkles werearound eyes wiser and kinder for the loss … and the gain.

“You know nothing!”

“I know those papers stem fromyour fear of losing your virility. But, General, passion has a natural end. Youdenied the truth and raced to another woman to regain it.”

“You son of a bitch!”

“Maybe. I am an orphan after all.But I know your life could easily become a futile chasing after illusion. You don’tsee that, while though passion ends, something deeper, more lasting, richer canevolve from the passion into the love of two souls grown into one.”

Fred groaned, “Oh, damn me,General. Can we just kill him and be done with this?”

“Don’t …do … this,” I said, therenewal of my breath suddenly leaving me again. “You won’t … like where … itleads.”

“Begging?”

‘Do not!’

I would not die on my back.Somehow, I managed to struggle to a sitting position. It was a Labor ofHercules to swing my legs over the bed. I slid off the mattress and managed notto embarrass myself by falling flat on my face.

Eisenhower watched fascinated asif at a kitten barking. His two assassins moved in for the kill, forgoing theguns at their hips for the quieter knives in their hands.

I managed to get out, “No matter… how … this turns … out … you’ll be … shamed.”

Manfred snorted, “We don’t doshame.”

I looked at Eisenhower. “I wasn’t… talking … to you.”

‘I cannot intervene.’

‘I heard you the first time.’

Fred’s right shoulder shiftedever so slightly. At St. Marok’s you never waited for them to strike first.What a dumb notion. It was a wonder that knighthood lasted as long as it did.

I was weak, dying … but not deadyet. My right hand shot out. Still too slow if I had been waiting for Fred tostrike first.

Yet, I was slow. His knifewas heading straight for my throat. My hand, already out, caught his at thewrist and twisted down. Hard. Very. I heard the snap, followed by his hoarsescream.

Manfred, stunned, hesitated aheartbeat too long. His last heartbeat. Sister Ameal taught me at the orphanagethat you didn’t hit where the muscle was … but where it wasn’t.

I slammed the tips of the firstthree fingers of my left hand into the center of Manfred’s throat with all mymight. It takes 33 pounds of impact to crush a human larynx. Sounds easy? Youtry hitting a full beer can with the tips of your fingers.

I didn’t even bother watchingManfred fall to the floor. I knew from past fights that he was dead … or dying.

My three fingers hurt like hell.But then, I hurt like hell all over. I sucked it up and turned to the onrushingFred who suddenly realized his knife was in my hand.

As his mouth dropped, I droppedhim … with his knife in his own throat. I watched without remorse as he fell tothe grey tiles, his blood adding a needed contrast to the dingy floor.

“You talk … too much.”

Eisenhower went for the Colt onhis hip. Fat chance. No fast draws from buckled holsters … and I had practicedwith knives all my time at St.Marok’s.

I threw the bloody knife withwhat little strength I had left. It skewered the general’s hand before he couldunsnap the holster. I cursed myself. Dumb. Dumb! You never, never, gave anenemy a weapon.

Still, I would do what I had donemy whole life: turn a mistake to my favor.

“No … general. You … will … have… to … pull … it … out … yourself … and get …close … to … kill … me. Think …you … can?”

The answer obviously was “No” assobbing, he stumbled out of my room, leaving the divorce papers scattered onthe floor like dying leaves.

An odd, disjointed thought hitme. Maybe his marriage was just that … only dying. Perhaps Mamie’s divorcepapers were only her last gasp attempt to get his attention, to get his loveback. Sad. The man she married no longer existed, broken by the weight ofduties beyond his ability to sustain.

Sadder. Maybe the man sheperceived when she married him only existed in the flawed discernment of animmature girl.

Dumb the things you think aboutwhen your own time is up.

I shifted to the window barelyfeeling my legs. “You … still … there … Wentworth?”

“No, man. I just left,” came backthe reply along with the sound of toes scrapping on the outside concrete wallreceding into the distance.

My vision was darkening. ‘Ididn’t survive St. Marok’s by brute strength or cruelty. I survived by speed,daring, and ….’

Sentient’s mind voice soundedfunny. ‘By never giving up.’

‘Damn straight.’

My strength bled out of me. Mylegs buckled. I joined my killers on the bloody floor. All became black.

“I did not come here of my ownaccord, and I cannot leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will haveto take me home.”

― Rumi